Your first scout in Assassin’s Creed Shadows comes from building the Kakurega at your Hideout. From there the count grows through a sidequest, Study upgrades, and specific story beats, up to a maximum of nine.
Scouts are the game’s intel system. They are what turn a vague objective marker into an actual location, so running out of them is what stalls progress more often than combat does.
Getting Your First Scouts
The Kakurega is the Hideout building that unlocks scouting. Build it and you have one scout to work with.
The fastest jump after that is the Finding New Allies sidequest, which permanently takes you to three scouts. It is available early and it is the single best return on time in the opening hours, so do it before you start burning scouts on optional objectives.
Raising the Maximum to Nine
Beyond the early sidequest, scout capacity comes from two places: your Study and your story progress.
The Study is the Hideout building that directly raises the cap:
- Level 1 adds a scout and reduces the search zone for quests by 25 percent.
- Level 2 adds another scout.
- Level 3 adds another and cuts the search zone by 60 percent.
That search-zone reduction matters as much as the extra bodies. A smaller zone means each scout you spend is more likely to land on the thing you are actually looking for.
The remaining increases come from story and quest completion, including defeating Yagyu Munetoshi during Nobutsuna’s Students, completing Tea Bowls for Rikyu and choosing to invite friends at the tea ceremony, and finishing The Fox and The Pirate alliance quests. Work through those and you reach the full nine.
Refreshing Scouts Without Waiting
Scouts replenish when the season turns, which is a long wait if you are mid-objective with none left.
You do not have to wait. Interact with the colourful pouches inside your Hideout’s Kakurega and spend mon to refresh your scouts immediately. It costs money rather than time, which is the right trade in almost every situation where you are stuck.
Worth knowing alongside this: when a season changes, any unused scouts fill the Salvage Chest at your Hideout, so they are not simply wasted.
Tips Most Players Miss
- Upgrade the Stable. It reduces smuggling cost from two scouts to one and increases what smuggling returns, which effectively gives you more scouts without raising the cap.
- Do not spend scouts on things you can see. If an objective is already visible on the map, walking there costs nothing.
- Bank the Study upgrades early. The search-zone reduction compounds across every scout you spend afterwards.
Scouts tie into the wider Hideout economy, since smuggling spends them and gathering oakwood and other resources is how you pay for the upgrades that grant more. Seasons are the other half of the loop, and changing the season resets scouts along with much else. Our full Assassin’s Creed Shadows guides cover the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you unlock scouts in AC Shadows? Build the Kakurega at your Hideout. That grants your first scout.
What is the maximum number of scouts? Nine, reached through the Finding New Allies sidequest, three Study upgrades, and several story and alliance quests.
How do you refresh scouts quickly? Interact with the pouches in your Hideout’s Kakurega and spend mon. Otherwise they refresh when the season changes.
What happens to unused scouts when the season changes? They fill the Salvage Chest at your Hideout rather than disappearing.